As we unanimously established in my previous post: DPS are universally selfish bastards who don't give a damn about anyone else and everyone knows this to be a fact. Okay actually we more had a general idea that DPS aren't as well integrated into groups. Their role is DPS and that pushes them towards the enemy, focuses them on that, and so it's inevitable that they'd be a bit disconnected from the group.

Tamarind suggests that giving DPS more ability to protect the group might not help much, "stopping to protect the healer gimps your DPS so I wonder if even if DPS classes *had* more functionality for doing so, if they'd want to?" I agree, just adding abilities won't help much. But as Shy and Hana's stories show, the abilities exist and are even used, but clearly they are exceptional cases, not the norm.

Jeffo goes ahead and ruins it all, saying what I wanted to say with "The lack of CC needed nowadays certainly speeds things up, but I think it's taken away a certain amount of the 'group experience'."

There we go: DPS retained their utility, but it isn't called for as much these days. Ret can throw out some healing, but how often do you see ret paladins throwing out heals in their few spare GCDs? How often are rogues blinding adds? When was the last time you asked for a sheep or any other CC outside of a handful of Ulduar pulls? DPS are just DPS, not DPS plus utility.

Can we bring them back into the fold? Sure, just add more encounters that require CC. Nerf tanks and healers, add more terrible debuffs, and we'll be sure to start CCing trash in heroics. But is that fun? To me, not really. It's just a slowdown. We'd get the same effect by just telling everyone to stand around for ten seconds before each pull.

CC and other utility need to be integrated into fights rather than part of preparation. Currently they are as fun and engaging as dropping a fish feast before a pull. Woo hoo. Down the line we need to see encounters that encourage use of non-DPS abilities during the fight. Imagine if KT's MC was a bit longer or if his adds could be feared/shackled. Or kited. Wouldn't it be more interesting to see a group of hunters using distracting shot and snares to drag the adds around while also keeping up DPS on KT?

CC is dangerous, I admit it. It weakens the notion of "bring the player, not the class." It can be tedious and annoying if not implemented well. But, if done properly, it would bring DPS back into the fold and make them part of the group again, rather than just a couple extra people who speed up the encounter, but for most fights are redundant.

Glad I could help, Klepsacovic (or did I hurt? Not quite sure...)! It's funny, isn't it? As Dorgol says, Blizz gave just about everybody and his uncle CC for Wrath, presumably so that people wouldn't be left out of raids because they have no CC -- and then they take it out of the game.

Interesting point you make about integrating CC into the fight, as opposed to something you do before the fight. Do you consider a fight like Moroes to have CC properly integrated? That was a fight where, until we greatly overgeared it, one CC failing or breaking early often meant a wipe.

@Dorgol: You're right! I didn't even realize that we almost all have a medium-long CC now, since I almost never see them in PvE, and I must admit, I haven't done any PvP in a while.

@jeffo: You helped. :)Moroes is a decent example except that the CC, at the time, was pretty specific (priest or more difficult: hunter). But as we geared up we no longer needed CC. I'll be honest, it was frustrating to have CC failure leading to wipes, but that made it more interesting and I it was one of my favorite fights, next to Shade of Aran. We struggled, but it felt like a learning struggle. So often it now feels like we just wipe a lot and no one is actually developing as a player.

While I will give you that CC has lost it's place in almost all 5-mans, and has primarily become a thing of PvP, it's not just a few pulls in Ulduar. Thorim tunnel on 25 man sucks royally with no mages. Pretty much all of Freya trash: infinitely easier with mages. Vezax trash: freaking impossible with no mages.